Composting kitchen and garden waste is great for the environment and for our plants, and composting with worms has the added benefit that worms are pretty awesome creatures.

Master composter Linda Mizes calls them “our BFFs,” and she likes worm composting so much that she has seven bins of red wigglers in addition to her traditional composting piles.

Worms need consistent care, but not much of it. The fertilizer they produce, known as worm castings, is rich in nutrients and ready to use.

Here are some of Mizes’ best tips in starting and maintaining your own worm farm.

Set up

Use Eisenia fetida (red wigglers) worms. They are the most productive. A half-pound to a pound is enough to start.

The bedding for your worms can be moistened, shredded newspaper, which provides a good source of carbon and helps protect the worms.

Put the bedding and worms in an aerated bin made of plastic or untreated wood. Cover it to keep out the rain and any creatures who will snack on your worms. You can make your own bin using a Rubbermaid-type container and drilling holes in it, or purchase a commercial bin.

Feeding the worms

Worms eat all kinds of food, but avoid those that are oily, have too much acid and which will smell bad as they decay. Fruits and vegetables scraps, coffee grounds and their filters, tea bags, bread, pasta, rice and cereals, cut into chunky bits, are good. Avoid citrus peels, hot peppers, dairy, meat, oils and eggs (egg shells are OK).

Add the food in a thin layer and cover with bedding. Wait to feed again until most of the food has been consumed, generally once a week.

Maintenance

Keep the bin in a protected area out of direct sunlight and high temperatures.

If you are using a plastic bin, brown liquid will collect in the bottom. Although some people recommend against it, Mizes says you can collect the liquid and use it on your plants.

As the food is consumed, the worms will begin producing dark castings (worm poop). They resemble coffee grounds. Allow the castings to accumulate for two to three months and harvest it when it is 3 to 4 inches deep.

You may find other creatures in the bin — springtails, pot worms, mites and sow bugs — but as long as the worms are thriving, don’t worry.

Harvesting

Remove all of the uneaten food and bedding. Empty the bin onto a plastic sheet in a sunlit area, creating several volcanolike hills with the castings. Wait 30 minutes, prepping the bin with new and some old bedding. The worms will move to the center of the hills, leaving you to scoop the casting off the top and sides. Consolidate the hills as you go until you have one large pile of castings and one pile of squirming worms. Return the worms to the bins and use the castings on your garden.

New in Our Garden

We are well on our way to our goal, as our donations to the Monument Crisis Center in Concord topped 1,230 pounds with this week’s harvest of tomatoes, squash, cucumbers and peppers.

Next time

Ruth Bancroft Garden’s Brian Kemble speaks on succulents next week. The free classes are at 10 a.m. Wednesdays at the Contra Costa Times, 2640 Shadelands Drive, Walnut Creek. Master Gardeners are on hand to answer questions, diagnose sick plants and identify pests. Winter vegetable seedlings and ornamental plants also are available for sale.

Joan Morris is the pets & wildlife columnist for the Bay Area News Group. She also writes about gardening and is the founder of Our Garden, a demonstration garden in Walnut Creek. Morris started her career in 1978 as a reporter for a small New Mexico newspaper. She has lived in the Bay Area since 1988.

He’s no snowman and he certainly doesn’t have a corncob pipe and a button nose, but Humane Society Silicon Valley’s eponymous white pooch is a jolly, happy soul who loves to play and fares better outdoors than indoors.